Because I decided to vomit my thoughts in a new place for awhile.
Tumblr was getting old so I have moved on to blogspot. You know me.
We made a gorgeous boy. It’s final.
Both of my sons are gonna have pretty blue eyes!
Brothers!
Baths make him happy
Milo
Month One
Yummy lunch
Big boy!!
~ Remembering the Firsts ~
Being in such a great relationship is so surreal sometimes. Two years later and I still get all gooey lovey driving to work thinking about how lucky I am. Today I got especially emo when I thought about the firsts I wanted to remember forever.
Walking into Ulta when I got a text from him for the first time, “Hi, it’s Cameron.”
I remember calling him for the first time. Alone in my apartment I paced around walking and talking, sitting on the couch, sitting on the counter, walking around the house all crushy-excited like. We both talk so much that neither of us could finish a sentence. We talked easily about everything from loving food, being Christians, where we work, what our parents are like - nothing was weird or awkward. We laughed at what we said. I immediately wanted more.
Our first date at Starbucks was so smooth and easy that I immediately assumed he had some sort of horrible secret that would drop at any time or that he was going to try and kill me. He was so super cute - wearing a beanie and a thermal under his shirt. Playing with his new ipad and showing me his favorite apps. I remember being relieved that I didn’t feel our age difference. We laughed about the same things, liked the same things and had the same priorities. He showed me the piano on his ipad and our hands touched, my heart stopped.
Getting ready for our first dinner date. I was sooooo nervous and I was super sick while I was getting ready to go. Like, head in the toilet kinda sick but I didn’t want to cancel last minute so I toughed it out and showed up. During our dinner date, I remember liking his outfit, him having fantastic hair, him slouching in the booth, talking with his mouthful and being absolutely the funniest person I’ve ever talked to. We never ran out of things to say. We battled who could write better with both hands. I made fun of him for acting like a restaurant expert (turns out he kind of is). I remember it was raining when we left. He got a call from his Mom that Kass was sick. I remember how worried he looked. He didn’t kiss me and that drove me wild with intrigue.
I was invited to a new years party, but I really wanted to spend it with him. Which in itself is indicative of our soulmate-ness. I’m slow to fall and always wary of creeper boys, and my friends were super confused at why I was willing to spend NYE with someone I’d known for a couple weeks instead of partying with them. I was inviting this stranger (basically) to come spend hours alone with me for New Years. In hindsight, I’m really lucky that he didn’t kill me. But truly, I just felt immediately part of a unit with him.
We still hadn’t kissed yet. He had told me in a conversation earlier that week that he would kiss me at New Years. I bet him he wouldn’t last that long. First lesson learned: do not tell Cameron he can’t do something unless you want to absolutely ensure he will.
On New Years Eve, you can’t imagine the thought and preparation I put into him coming over. Beyond cleaning my house like a maniac, I was obsessed with making a list of things we could do if it got weird and awkward - which ended up being a totally useless list. From the moment he showed up it was that same warm cozy feeling of being with someone you’ve always known and genuinely like hanging out with. We went to the grocery store for snacks where we had our first impasse:
Cameron: “I’m basically down to eat anything with red meat.”
Jenni: “I’m basically down with getting everything except red meat.”
I can’t even remember what we got, but it was a weird conglomeration of food I remember. We went home and just hung out like we’ve always been hanging out. He helped me decide where to hang wall art. We watched Braveheart. I spent the whole night playing with him and trying to get him to kiss me but that stubborn boy stayed strong. He didn’t hurt my feelings, I was intrigued by his confidence and his in-chargeness. I was used to bossing boys around.
Somewhere around hour 5 of braveheart (seriously, that movie is so long), and right at 11:59pm, he kissed me. Smoothly conceding to my bet and letting me win while simultaneously making we wait until the last minute (literally) and still basically winning overall. We kissed as the clock turned 12:00 and then 12:01 and probably longer. It was so sparkly and full body rush of absolutely wanting to never do anything else but this that I can’t hardly explain it with stupid words.
He left shortly after that; he was a gentlement and didn’t even act like sleeping over was an option. In fact, I really respected just how little he tried to get on me. He talked about how he didn’t sling that card around and wanted it to be right. Again, I was wild with intrigue. He left that night and said, “I adore you.” He left and I was absolutely shining in sparkly love with him.
Our first I love you is a secret between him and me. But let me just say it involves a bee in my car, frantic screaming and voicemails. It’s super special though and it’s recorded in my mind forever.
So, if anyone has made it this far in reading this and you’re not Cameron or I, I applaud you. This post falls under my desire to never forget that sensational firsts that became a sensational life with my fabulous husband and magnificent family. It’s also driven by my need to shout from the rooftops how amazing my husband is and how absolutely lucky and undeserving I feel.
The only way I can find to end this to post a final first - our first picture. One of many to come where I am smiling like an idiot and he is making an uncomfortable snarl face. My handsome husband. Love of my life.
How to Raise Boys
Note: This is not my post, it is copy/pasted from goodmenproject.com but I think it’s fabulous and the last part makes my heart burst in a million little lovey pieces. Enjoy!
Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads. And that goes double for me. I’ve had three kids across two marriages and I am undoubtedly the weak link. My 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son trust their step-mom more than they trust me, which proves that I married well but am still getting the hang of being a dad. Most of us are.
That said, there are a few subtle nuances that I have picked up along the way as a dad that might come in handy for moms raising boys.
Ladies, here are some things to think about with your boys:
- Think caveman. Adult women have thousands of emotional states, as do girls like my daughter. Boys, on the other hand, tend to feel one of three: mad, sad, happy. Don’t project your complex emotional life on your son. His issue of the moment might not be that complicated. He wants to eat, poop, or run. On a really bad day he wants his toy back after some other kid took it from him. He doesn’t want to stare out the window and have lengthy discussions about the meaning of life, as my eight-year-old daughter often did.
- Watch his body not his mouth. Again, like adult men, the clues to how your son is doing will show up first in his body language. Jumping up and down with six-inch vertical leaps is the natural state of being and is good. Slumped shoulders are bad. Yelling is good. Quiet needs attention.
- When in doubt, hug. Boys will often have a much harder time than girls verbalizing their problems. My 5-year-old son will sometimes burst out into tears after seemingly trivial events. I know there is something deeper going on, but I am not going to get it out of him, at least not at that moment (whereas my daughter would not only tell me what went wrong but in no uncertain terms why it was my fault, which was generally true enough). So the solution is physical not verbal. I spend a lot of time just hugging my boys. I usually have no idea why. But as a default cure-all, it seems to work wonders. A minute later they are all patched up and ready to rumble again. This even works pretty well with my 14-year-old, who is a 6-foot-tall linebacker at Boston College High School.
- Yes, it really is all about poop. Girls potty train 6 to 9 months before boys, but once boys make it onto the throne, there is no stopping them. Moving their bowels is pretty much the highlight of their day (true confession: it still is for me, too), and they are going to want to talk about it. Bathroom time is a participatory sport. My five-year-old likes to head to the bathroom just as the family is sitting down to dinner, sometimesduring dinner. It’s the first time he has been still long enough to realize he has to go. And he wants me to come with him, not just to assist in the wipe but to have a leisurely conversation about the status of his poop. As much as I found this inconvenient at first, now I just go with it. Quality time is quality time.
- Batman lives forever. Boys, even at a young age, realize the importance of super powers. They want to be good and believe in the existence of ultimate good in the world. Boys sort out their identities in relation to the mythical characters they hear about. My son is obsessed with Batman. He wears a full costume, even through the airport and down Madison Avenue. What amazes me even more than his dedication to the superhero is how the guard at LaGuardia or the guy hanging off the back of a garbage truck sees him and shouts, “Batman!” My boy nods his head just slightly, acknowledging his public before moving onto the important work at hand, like going to kindergarten.
- Pointless physical activity is perfect. My brother and I once convinced his two sons and my older boy, when they were all around the age of 10, that they really needed to build a structure out of rocks. The rocks were on one side of a beach, but the perfect spot where the structure had to be built, according to our sage advice, was on the other side of the beach. Each stone weighed between ten and thirty pounds. The boys started moving the boulders one by one, working together to lift the heaviest ones. My brother and I set up our beach chairs midway from the rock pile to building site. We read the paper most of the morning while the boys tired themselves out moving rocks and then assembling a tremendous cathedral. By lunch they were tired and happy, and my brother and I had enjoyed a peaceful morning.
- Winning does matter, but less than you think. Boys — perhaps even more than girls — put themselves under extreme pressure to perform in school, in sports, and in social situations. They talk about it less, so the sting of failure can run even more deeply than with girls. With boys it’s important to emphasize the lessons to be gained from failure, instead of trying to win at all costs, and to emphasize the development of the whole boy. Too often in our culture, boys are pushed to become one-dimensional robots. Goodness isn’t about winning at youth soccer or having the most friends or being the smartest kid in class; it’s also about being kind. That’s something as a mom that you can particularly help your son understand.
- Clothes matter. I know there are way more options for dressing little girls than little boys, so the tendency might be to just throw jeans and a t-shirt on your son and forget about it. But you better make sure they are the right jeans and the right t-shirt. The only consistent battle I have had with my sons is over what they wear. It matters way more to them than I ever would have imagined. They want to look cool; they want to be comfortable (pants that are tight but not too tight, warm and yet breathable). I do draw the line with clothes that have already been worn two days in a row, but I don’t discount the importance of fashion to my kindergartener.
- Crowds, not so much. I have noticed that my daughter lights up when she enters a crowd, whether family or strangers. Mass humanity is something that gives her energy. With my boys, and, frankly, for me too, it’s the opposite. They get shy and tend to hide behind my legs. I try to protect them from these situations and not push them beyond their limitations.
- Bedtime is sacred. Because boys are so active, it’s hard to get them to sit still. The best time of day is the ten minutes before they go to sleep. Crawl into bed with them, read books, and hold them while they fall off to sleep. If you don’t believe in God, you will once you have lain next to your overactive son while his body goes limp next to you, and he ever so faintly begins to snore.
Read more at http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/raising-boys-advice-for-moms/#1zTOItwKIVE0T2TK.99
